Trouble in His Brain

The principal at what I will now start referring to as Mountain Town High School and I have been playing phone tag, the result of which is that I have a second interview scheduled for Monday afternoon.

!!

He said it would be a standard interview, with the dean of students, a counselor, some teachers, a speech student, and himself present. Sure, nothing to be nervous about.

Pros of MTHS, as I now see them:
- It's high school
- It's a theater and English position
- It's in a community that supports the program
- The principal specifically talked about supporting what teachers are passionate about
- The school tests well above state average, and always meets AYP (STMS has killed off most of my desires to work in a "tough" school, i.e. failing school)


Cons:
- It's a tiny school/district/town (again, something that STMS has killed the desire for - I would love to work in a district like DPJH is in again - one so huge, I get lost in the crowds)
- The pay (Oy! The pay! Money matters, I'm afraid. Not a lot, but this is less than I made my last few years at DPJH. I thought leaving Utah would work in my favor, salary-wise).
- The commute (maybe - I'm curious to see what it's like on Monday)


Okay, so the cons aren't that many. I'm just nervous that I'll like it and nervous that I won't. Typical, for me.


What I need to do now is figure out how to squeeze in some more interview prep in the next four days. I'd like to put together a DVD of some of the plays from DPJH to show them, but I also have the following tasks to do by Sunday night:

- Update grades and print progress reports,
- Finish writing/editing "Making Waves",
- Finish my taxes (it's taking me longer than usual this year, thanks to the trans-state move and all),
- Make and email Jason an itenerary for Greece and Istanbul (he's in charge of greater Turkey),
- Attend a Relief Society Leadership training tonight, and
- Submit the visiting teaching report for March.


So, naturally, I am hard at work on writing a blog entry.


Yeah, my typical procrastination. I am wading through things slowly, but it didn't help that I got bogged down by some sort of sickness for the first part of the week. I'm not sure what it was - a generally thorough exhaustion/dizziness/lethargic mood. It was strange. I called in for a sub yesterday and slept all morning, which seemed to have helped. I feel the beginning itchiness of a cold sore, so it may not be over yet, but at least I was teaching more coherently today.


Speaking of "Making Waves" (and I did, a few paragraphs ago. Remember?), I spend most of my spring break last week in SLC working on the show with Heidi. I did manage to squeeze in a few hours of play with Teresa, Janelle, Ben, John, (missed you, Kelley!) and my grandmother; in between, we worked full-time on the show. I need to fly out to SLC again this weekend to wrap things up (a quick trip - out Saturday morning and back Sunday afternoon), but we're close and it's coming together well. It helped that Heidi and I went to see a really, really strange production on Friday. And by strange, I mean bad. I'm talking, it rivals "N" (of horse chunks fame, remember Camp Shakespeare people?).

It began with the ticket takers instructing us to remove our shoes and leave them in the lobby, continued with a walking tour through a brain (not figuratively), then put us through two very long hours of the egotistical self-uindulgence that is most performance art, included the show's creator handing out beers and champange, yelling at the audience for not getting "enthusiastic" (i.e. drunk), taking a bong hit before leading us on a -not-very-well-done meditative mind-walk, climaxed with them wrapping us all up in orange yarn, and ended with the actors passing out gift boxes wrapped in close-ups of brains. The boxes contained, surprise!, our shoes, because "The greatest gift you can give is a piece of yourself. So, I give you all pieces of yourselves." We then had to stand up, holding the shoes aloft as we tried to find our own in the crowd.


Two good things came of it: 1) Heidi and I got some good ideas for the show while waiting shoeless in the lobby prior to being lead through the brain and 2) we realized that our show is a lot better than this, and if she can get money to do that sort of thing, by golly, so can we.

I also got to see a much better show, since my family and I went to see Andy and Jen perform in Westminster's production of "A Chorus of Disapproval" that Saturday. It helped wash away the brains.

Okay, I'll go do more work now. I'll let you know how the job interview goes. Fingers crossed?